PU men8217;s team enter final

CHANDIGARH, Oct 23: On a day of upset defending champions Allahabad University, Allahabad crashed out, losing 2-3 to Delhi University, De...

CHANDIGARH, Oct 23: On a day of upset defending champions Allahabad University, Allahabad crashed out, losing 2-3 to Delhi University, Delhi in the men8217;s section on the penultimate day of North Zone Inter University badminton championship being played at Panjab University Indoor hall. While hosts PU, Chandigarh got a scare before beating their arch rival Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar 3-1. PU will lock horns with Delhi varsity in the final tomorrow.

Delhi8217;s Hemant Duggal set the ball rolling for his team, winning the first singles by defeating Swarnjeet in straight games 15-9, 15-7. The win lifted the morale of the Delhi8217;s shuttlers and they went on to pocket the second singles also. Rudra Kaushik outclassed Anoop Mehrotra 15-13, 10-15, 15-13, who struggled hard to find his touch.

Last year8217;s winners, however, came back strongly in the doubles. Amit and Swarnjeet combined well to register a 15-7, 15-3 victory over Subhash and Hemant Duggal. Allahabad also won the reverse singles when Amit Mehrotra beat Satwinder Singh 15-5, 15-9 to level the score 2-2. But in the decider they again faltered. Allahabad8217;s pair of Anoop and Vivek were unable to put up a brave front and surrendered tamely to the duo of Satwinder and Sukhwinder 15-0, 15-3, which gave Delhi berth in the final.

In the PU-GND varsity tie, though the former won the first singles but lost the initial lead as second singles was bagged by the latter. However, PU shuttlers pulled up their sleeves and scored wins in the doubles and reverse singles to clinch the issue.

PU8217;s Amit Sachdeva was stretched by Jaideep Kohli 13-15, 15-3, 15-9. Ashish Sharma went down fighting to Rohan Kapoor 10-15, 14-17, in the second singles. In the doubles, Amandeep and Sunil beat Sumit and Ankush 15-4, 15-8 while in the reverse singles Rajat Johal defeated Gagandeep 15-9, 15-7.

The second singles between Ashish and Rohan also came to a temporarily halt due to wrong call by the line judge. PU women8217;s team, however, suffered defeat at the hand of their arch rival GND varsity. The former lost 0-2.

Saloni Kundra gave a flying start to GND varsity by beating Bhawna 11-4, 11-3. Saloni combined with Sandhya to humble Bhawna and Pallavi 15-1, 15-2, in the doubles.

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Punjabi University, Patiala defeated Delhi University, Delhi 2-0, to set up a title clash with Amritsar university.

Meeta Bhandari prevailed over Gaytri 11-8, 11-4. Meeta and Navdeep beat Krishma and Kanika 15-13, 2-15, 15-0, in the doubles.